Attention Seniors: Prepare To Work Well Into Your 70s

Thirty-nine percent of people believe they will still be working past the age of age 65, according to a recent Gallup survey.

More and more people are starting to realize that 20 to 30 years of retirement is not only difficult to plan for, but it’s also very risky.

The chance of ending up at or below the poverty level for two to three decades is a real possibility. But needing to work in retirement and being able to find employment after a certain age is a whole other issue.

Anyone over the age of 50 who has ever lost a job knows what a nightmare it is to find another. Older employees are not the preferred choice in the work world.

But that’s changing!

A new report by the Shift Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology states that the future of workers is older, not younger. By 2024, nearly one-quarter of the workforce will be 55 or older—more than double the amount in 1994.

Employees over the age of 50 will be in greater demand for a number of reasons…

Falling fertility rates and tighter immigration rules mean employers will have to keep workers in place longer to keep jobs filled.

Millions of retirees will move to freelance, part-time, or contract employment with no benefits—another big cost saver.

As of 2015, almost 33% of our workforce—including 48% of our supervisors—was eligible to retire. Replacing that kind of talent isn’t easy, so employers will work to keep those employees on board.

And the more obvious reason… You can’t put a price on the value of decades of work experience.

And “anticipatory careering” (AC) will come into play once we’ve been in the workforce for 50–60 years.

AC means anticipating when our skills will become obsolete. And over a career of five or six decades, they will!

As artificial intelligence, robots, and things as unimaginable as driverless cars move onto the scene, the responsibility to stay employable will fall on us.

The old model of finishing school, working, and retiring at 62 is over.

The future is about dynamic employment. We will have to move in and out of the work world throughout our adult lives to retool and adapt. And if the past 20 years of technological advances have taught us anything, it’s that we better stay flexible.

The incredible medical advances of the past 30 years have given us a longevity bonus. We are living longer than most of us ever thought possible. Now we have to fund it.

To do so, we need to either make sure our skills keep up with the times so we stay employable… or save enough now to avoid working in retirement.